The Bakeneko

The bakeneko (化け猫, “changed cat”) is a type of Japanese yokai, or supernatural creature. According to its name, it is a cat that has changed into a yokai. It is often confused with the nekomata, another cat-like yokai, and the distinction between the two can often be quite ambiguous. There are legends of bakeneko in various parts of Japan, but the tale of the Nabeshima Bakeneko Disturbance in Saga Prefecture is especially famous.

The abilities attributed to the bakeneko are various, but include shapeshifting into humans, wearing a towel or napkin on the head and dancing, speaking human words, cursing humans, manipulating dead people, possessing humans, and lurking in the mountains and taking wolves along with them to attack travelers. As an unusual example, on Aji island, Oshika District, Miyagi Prefecture and in the Oki Islands, Shimane Prefecture, there is a story of a cat that shapeshifted into a human and wanted to engage in sumo.

However, concerning the legend that cats could speak, it has been pointed out that it may have arisen because humans would misinterpret the cat’s meowing as human language, and for this reason some would say that the cat is not a type of yokai. In 1992, in the Yomiuri newspaper, there was an article that argued that when people thought they had heard a cat speak, upon listening a second time, they realized that it was simply the cat’s meowing and that it was only coincidence that it resembled a word in human language.